Bookmark This Moment

We want to post this bookmark leading to Davos co-founder Klaus Schwab's astonishing keynote remarks at the opening of this year's World Economic Forum.  By using this technique, we are inserting a placeholder in the Conversation of a Generation.  That's because we frankly don't know what to make of Professor Schwab's assertion that capitalism, in its present form, has outlived its usefulness.

 CBC correspondent Terry Milewski posted one of the most pertinent commentaries on the Schwab analysis, reporting that the Davos doyen remarked:  "Capitalism, in its current form, no longer fits the world around us... A global transformation is urgently needed and it must start with reinstating a global sense of social responsibility."

Remarkable as the professor's words were, considering that he has presided over this annual celebration of the western democracies' economic success story for 40 years, it isn't clear that his diagnosis carried the day in 2012.  Bill Gates, for example, told the BBC that the economic system that made him the richest man in the world, is a "phenomenal system". 

"We're going through a tough period, but there is no other system that has improved humanity," the Microsoft founder told the BBC.  Amen to Bill's assessment.  But despite his brilliant success and his stellar philanthropic role model, Gates won't have the last word on the subject. After all, about the time Davos was getting under way four decades ago, the blue chip Club of Rome declared the widsom of "limits to growth".  Despite the veracity of this prognosis and the widespread promotion of its message by the club's leading disciples, including Canadians Pierre Trudeau and Maurice Strong, the lemming-like swarm still went over the cliff in 2008.

Only time will tell if this year's Davos diagnosis makes any difference.  Professor Schwab's declaration was overtaken by competing voices before the conference concluded.  But as a signal event his words are worth remembering for what they represent. 

                    

Crony Capitalism Raising an Old Stink

Only 50 per cent of respondents to a recent U.S. poll reacted positively to the word "capitalism", reports Nicholas D. Kristof in today's New York Times.  Forty per cent reacted negatively,  In the 18 to 29 age group, people who held the negative view were in the majority.  Think about what that means.

Kristif interprets the result to mean that crony capitalism is turning America's dream team into socialists.  No poll results were made available on what reaction that term received.  But for at least two generations, socialism has been likened to devil worship throughout America.  If Kristof  and the Pew poll are right, we are seeing a tectonic shift in the core values of the generation that is currently expected to turn the ship of state around. 

Just to be clear again, Prophets of Boom has always held that the insights reported here do not challenge capitalism as the economic basis for a just society.  Like democracy it is the best system we have.  But it's far from perfect. 

Wait a minute.  Doesn't this language have a familiar ring to it?  Anyone who set foot on a campus in the Sixties and were not yet turned off by the self-serving, blowhard politics of later decades might recognize that these concepts have been used to take some of the stink out of the system for generations. 

Ironically, the despotism of international communism's rogue's gallery was used to give  socialism a bad name in the salons of self-interest. 

What is common to both is the balance of power.  A natural hierarchy always seems to corrupt the best of intentions. 

Will technology's new reach be the great leveller, as seems to be the case in the Arab Spring, in Obama's first election victory, in the Occupy Movement or in a multitude of disputes that now see just-in-time demonstrations of force around the world?   No doubt a networked world is awakening the power within us all. 

      

             

Futurehype: The Genesis of Greed

Compliments of Stefan Morrell @ coolvibe.com

During this winter of their discontent, the "Occupy" movement might do well to consider the genesis of the myth that progress was preordained and inexhaustible.  While that may be so, total surrender to the myth made us vulnerable to futurehype, the subtext of life.

Branson's Answers

  High-flying Richard Branson has been on a decades-long quest for answers to the big questions that face us.  His iconic status has put him at the forefront of the Conversation of a Generation.  He has created a forum for discussion that he calls Capitalism 24902 (the measure of the circumference of the earth). 

No anti-capitalist, Branson has been profit-making from the growing unrest over monopolistic free-booting that marks the genre.  He was demonstrating his dissent with single-purpose profiteering long before Occupy Wall Street became a cry for fairness and equity in the streets of America.  As such, he embodies the hope that enterprises can be self-sustaining, profitable and provoke social change.

Branson’s latest gambit is a book called Screw Business as Usual, which backgrounds his version of what The Economist calls his “philanthrocapitalism” in its latest issue.  The spark for this discussion is a fire that recently levelled his house on Necker Island, off the coast of Virgin Gorda and one of the minor British Virgins.  Necker Island is where Branson has huddled with rock stars, innovators and icons of equity and fairness like Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela to talk about ways to change the world.

A Caribbean retreat is a long way from the cold concrete squats of middle America.  So are the third world conditions Branson wants to correct.  But the principle of making more with lemons than mere personal fortunes is central to both trains of thought. 

Branson’s new book can be a primer for anyone who thinks seriously about where the “Occupy” movement could turn its attention next.  

Occupy the Blogosphere

Occupation forces have gone into hibernation in many places as the authorities have moved in to shut down their encampments. But the melody should linger on. Economic disparity certainly will.

In an effort to do our part, Prophets of Boom will feature two kinds of posts over the coming months. The first stream will be drawn from a book manuscript written a decade ago but unpublished because nobody was ready to acknowledge the threat posed to individual and collective sovereignty by mounting debt loads. Entitled "Futurehype", each post in the series will describe how North Americans were lulled into thinking that the honeypot of postwar prosperity was bottomless. 

 There will be stories of naiveté, of greed and of gullibility, to be sure.  American Greed wasn’t just discovered to explain the credit crash of 2008.  More to the point, there will be accounts of how faith in technology and the pipeline of mass communications overheated expectations.  In a real way we allowed ourselves to be brainwashed by our own ingenuity.  In the process, we lost sight of our core values. That, basically, is how we let ourselves get in so deep. 

 The second stream of posts in this blog will be based on our search for answers out of the current economic de-stabilization.  In this search we will be asking whether the Conversation of a Generation is beginning to take shape.  Is there anything happening out there to give us hope that the most innovative and productive society in history can work its way out of this slump?  What are people proposing to do differently?

 This series will not be a simplistic critique of capitalism run amok.  Rather, it will be an exploration of ways to shape our collective experience for the common good.

 Has Occupy Wall Street really signalled the start of something big?  Or are we programmed to sleepwalk into a new Dark Ages? 

 Along the way, readers will be urged to look for solutions themselves and tell the rest of us what they have found out.  We will be … and we will post our findings as they emerge.   

Boulevards of Broken Dreams

The conversation of the generation is far from coherent.  Dismantling of the camp-style occupations across North America is inevitable because civic authorities and police have the clout of municipal public safety ordinances and criminal law behind them.  But it has been kicked off with a messy display of unrest in hundreds of communities. 

By accepting all comers, as recommended in the last post, the gene pool of earnest protesters was certain to become diluted by malingerers and mere malcontents. It may have been glib to exhort people to “Just Show Up.”  Confrontational face-offs in city parks, vacant lots and boulevards of broken dreams were sure to occur when these unruly assemblies squared off with officialdom bent on enforcing public health and safety regulations.  But it was called for all the same.

Make no mistake -- the boulevards will be cleared, if not by official edict, by the relentless cycle of the seasons.  The last chance before the freeze to exhibit outrage at rampant greed and runaway free market dogma through outdoor housekeeping is upon us.  Some demonstrators have been better housekeepers than others and the movement is being defined by the habits of a messy few.

Demonstrators are making the most of the opportunity through resistance to the order to decamp.      

But it’s time to practise indoor housekeeping again.  There will be other opportunities to demonstrate.  Income disparity is as certain as death and, yes, taxes.  That’s because of who holds power – and who doesn’t.  

It’s time for the boulevardiers to stand down before things get any uglier.  Violence should never be the hallmark of this movement and that too is inevitable the longer the standoffs prevail.

The importance of the occupy movement is that it marked the moment when the conversation of the generation began in earnest.  In that alone it has accomplished something momentous. 

Is It Time to Just Show Up?

Woody Allen may have said it best.  Eighty per cent of success is showing up. 

The time may not be right for Occupy Wall Street to forge a common message.  But a unified slogan could be just the thing for the moment when critics are trying to debunk the movement for its formlessness.

"Just Show Up" could serve the purpose.

Six million Americans have been out of work for more than six months.  If that doesn't qualify people to protest against the greed and opportunism that has exploited them, what would?  The thing about the six million -- and all their dependents -- is that most of the time they're invisible.  So it's hard to imagine how much misery and shame that represents.

As long as people who are suffering from the system's excesses remain huddled by the hearth -- as long as the unemployed protest their fate from corner bar stools across America -- they can be dismissed as an inevitable consequence of capitalism.

Right-thinking people know they are not.  Increasingly, they represent the silent majority.  Instead of being shuffled out of sight, isn't it time for the real majority to JUST SHOW UP?

Ex-PM in Synch With Protesters

Anyone who thinks the Occupy Wall Street movement has no relevance for Canadians may be surprised to see former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney offering his sympathetic take on the protests.  Mulroney understands how Canada's economy is driven by what happens in the U.S.

As prime minister, Mulroney saw first-hand how Canadian fiscal policy is defined by the international money markets,  leading him to champion free trade as a means to achieve global competitiveness.
Small wonder that Mulroney has joined Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney in raising a supportive voice on behalf of the protests. 

Marginal living standards are becoming the great leveller in North America as the middle class is hollowed out after putting all its faith in free markets.  Ironically, while its equal opportunity they want, Americans -- and Canadians to a lesser degree so far -- are finding equality at the bottom of the income spread.

Some commentators dismiss the occupations as copycat displays, preferring to credit the prudence of Canada's chartered banks for sparing us from the fate that has befallen our U.S. neighbours. 

But they only need to look at the soaring debt load in this country to understand how Canadian consumers are poised to share the same fate.             

Mapping the Occupation

The previous post was entitled Occupy the Western World as a reflection of what is happening as much as an exhortation.   This embedded link shows how The Guardian has mapped how the Occupy Wall Street ethos has gone viral throughout Europe and the Americas.  

The Guardian has geo-tagged all the locations where "Occupy" demonstrations have occurred in recent days and accompanied the satellite map with a spread sheet recording numbers, links to sources and available photographic records of each event.

It's a fascinating record of how an irresistible idea -- equality of opportunity -- cannot be supressed despite decades of social engineering inspired by a culture that exhalts individual achievement.  It's an archive of collective will.     

Occupy the Western World

Occupy Wall Street is still a burgeoning, largely moderate collection of interests

So far the violence-prone anti-global hoardes haven’t taken over.  The odds are that either they will or at least that there will be a clash between the moderates in the movement, who are openly declaring themselves, and the extremists who like to wear black masks.

Nobody with any sense is arguing that capitalism should be dismantled, only that its excesses must be reduced.  Equality of opportunity is the goal, not chaos.

But the longer the movement continues as a formless mass, the greater the likelihood that it will be hijacked by extreme positions, violent or otherwise. 

Its shambolic state has certain advantages:  as long as it is undefined, it can be inclusive.  Until it adopts a manifesto – and by doing so defines the basis for negotiating a new social contract in America – the worst that can be said about its philosophy is that it is meaningless.  But this lack of precision is the very nourishment that allows the movement to grow.  For now, it appears to have sustainable momentum and the spontaneity that can attract new adherents. 

At this point, calls for the mass demonstrations to coalesce around a common theme would only fragment it.  However there is a limit to how long this street theater can remain formless, due to its vulnerability.     

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney lent momentum to the movement when he gave his endorsement in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Carney told Peter Mansbridge that the Occupy Wall Street protests and their ilk, that hit Canadian cities on the weekend, are a “democratic expression of views’’ and “entirely constructive.’’ 

“It makes it more tangible, the challenges that that economy is facing, and it makes it more important to demonstrate success on issues such as financial reform,’’ he said.  Carney’s utterances couldn’t have been more apt.  Nor could they have been more potent since he is about to become the head of the Financial Stability Board, tasked with reforming the international banking system using Canada’s model.    

As moral authority goes, Carney’s utterance was as powerful as Warren Buffet’s assertion this summer that people like him aren’t paying their fair share for public services.  And it is more timely, since the replacement of the FSB’s current chairman takes place next month. 

It’s vital for the momentum of Occupy Wall Street to be sustained right now.  That’s because, like Sisyphus, Carney is having to push a very large bolder up a hill.  Europe’s money managers are slow to respond to demands for a trillion-dollar infusion to shore up the continent’s banking system.  Canadian spokesmen have told the Europeans that action is already overdue and further delay will only make it harder to stabilize the system. 

Carney could use the evidence that there is a growing impatience with the status quo throughout the western world.  This virtual constituency, uncontrollably linked by social media, is becoming a new political reality much larger than national boundaries. 

Due to its common cause – angered and frustrated by being disinherited and futureless -- it is becoming the basis for a new global political reality.  To falter now would remove a powerful force for change just when it is most needed.              

Right Brain is Empty

CBC's hired mogul Kevin O'Leary is stumped by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges' coherent description of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Hedges vows not to re-appear with Canada's answer to the Fox News mouthpiece.  O'Leary doesn't seem able to grasp plain speaking.

If there is to be a productive debate over solutions to the hollowing-out of western capitalist-style democracies, this clip shows it will take debaters who can put their case without resorting to cheap TV trash talk.  As a supporter of "Friends of Canadian Broadcasting" we understand the CBC's effort to balance the conversation by giving air time to both sides.  But surely the right can find somebody capable of representing their position without caricaturing their ideology. 

Name-calling and character-bashing. are the redoubt of the empty-headed.  Those are not the people who are going to dig America out of its slough of despair.

O'Leary reflects the most simplistic side of the argument and real life just isn't that simple for most people.  That's why the Wall Street protesters are calling themselves The 99 Per Cent.  Instead of  profiting from sure-fire formulas for capital gain, most people are struggling to feed, clothe and heat themselves.  O'Leary should try that for a while and see if his simple-mided solutions can dig him out.             

Conversation of a Decade

As we said when we launched Prophets of Boom, the crisis brought on by credit default swaps in 2008 and the subsequent collapse of the U.S. housing market would begin a conversation that will likely last a decade or more.  Young Americans who fear they are being disinherited by the excesses of the elites have brought the debate about their future out into the open with their move to occupy Wall Street

The movement is spreading to cities across the U.S. and there has been online chatter from the West Coast about expanding it to include main streets in Canada.   The power of the internet to mobilize like-minded people is being demonstrated to anyone who cares to check. 

In fact, the conditions that move New Yorkers to demonstrate at the altar of capitalism are being felt everywhere that the powerless are being dominated by others.  Increasingly in America thanks to skewed expectations, downloading of public expenditures to communities in crisis and outright greed, the conditions for dissent are being defined by one's distance from the centers of power.  That distance can be measured in miles, money and years of experience.  A very large constituency exists within those parameters - one that is finding its voice and exploring its influence.

The system of goverenance that was devised to harness regal and economic power for the collective good is seen to be failing.  Web-based means are mobilizing an opposition that is far more united and adroit than traditional politics or the ballot box.  How these dynamics play out in the coming decade could change policies or it could change the democratic system itself.   

One thing is clear:  contemporary leaders will need the widsom of the founding fathers to fashion a compromize that will satisfy the parties to this debate.  So far they have mostly been mute.